Hi to everybody,
After reading so many of these postings over the past few days I feel like a fraud.
I found this forum last week after following an internet thread to find a Johnny Mathis cd, and thanks to mrsd a long term quest may have been solved, but that's a by the way.
I started to read some of the threads, and before I realised, it was 0400 in the morning. I was overwhelmed by the astonishing outpouring of support and advice I found throughout the Forum, and the fact that people took the time to reach out and simply say "Hi, your not alone".
Now, it's several days later and much more reading, and I find myself sitting thousands of miles away in South Africa trying to put into words what I feel.
I am not a religious person, but have spent most of my life trying to treat people as equals and with respect and dignity. Having lived and worked in every continent on the planet I have encountered all shades of humanity, and the overwhelming majority of them pass through this life with a serene indifference to the plight and suffering of others, apart from the occasional "Tut tut", of disapproval, letter to the local paper, $5.00 in the charity envelope, and the comment "they should try living in my shoes for a day".
Cynical it may be, but a harsh practical reality in the light of the world's problems.
Yet, on your Forum I found so many of those individual souls I had occassionally met around the world, who were living above the 'me and mine' culture, seemingly all meeting in the same place for a brief moment in space.
In words and icons, so many of you have come together to show compassion, support and understanding for another persons pain and suffering.
You are a community of caring individuals and I wish that you were all my neighbours, for then this would be a much better world for everybody's neighbours.

I wish you all well and close with this thought,

"To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition. To know that even one life has breathed easier becauseyou have lived. This is to have succeeded"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

With regards and admiration
Ardale